Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure, for example, relates to wireless communication systems, and more particularly to techniques for managing a logical traffic connection that uses data aggregation (e.g., a logical traffic connection that uses wireless wide area network (WWAN)/wireless local area network (WLAN) traffic aggregation).
Description of Related Art
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
By way of example, a wireless multiple-access communication system may include a number of base stations, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, otherwise known as user equipment (UE) devices. A base station may communicate with UEs on downlink channels (e.g., for transmissions from a base station to a UE) and uplink channels (e.g., for transmissions from a UE to a base station).
In some examples, a UE may communicate with a first access point (e.g., a base station) and a second access point (e.g., a WLAN access point). The first access point and the second access point may be associated with a logical traffic connection between the UE and a peer entity (e.g., an application server, a content server, another UE, etc.). For uplink transmissions over the logical traffic connection, the UE may transmit a first set of data to the first access point and a second set of data to the second access point. The second access point may transmit the second set of data to the first access point. The first access point may aggregate the first set of data and the second set of data and forward an aggregate data stream over a WWAN to the peer entity. The aggregation performed by the first access point may be referred to as radio access network (RAN) aggregation. When the WWAN includes a Long Term Evolution (LTE) or LTE-Advance (LTE-A) network, the aggregation may be referred to as LTE Wi-Fi aggregation (LWA).